Episode 8 – The One Tree Forest

Got a lot going on in my tum. Welcome to Spelt Lore. My name's Sean O'Hara. I got a lot going on in my tum. Okay. Should probably not do that. All right, starting again. Gather round, friends, let me tell you a tale of three heroes, noble and bold. A brute, a druid, and a thief who is but nine years old. You know them by name, you know them by deed. Their quests are famously daring. So here I sit, singing to you an adventure that is worth sharing.

Tuck is the brute, he knows not his home, he loves to sing and fight. Fingers half-elf, he shifts his shape and wields a spear with great might. Billy's a thief, his tiny size does mask the largest heart. Best and brightest they may not be, but their friendship outweighs their smarts. So gather round, friends, and listen close. For the best of the best, they're the best of the best. The tale's about to start. Welcome to Spell Lore. My name's Sean O'Hara, I'm your game master.

With me, as always, playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdul Aziz. Hello. Playing Fat Billy, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai. Hello. And playing Shathane, the elf ranger, guest player, Mark Robertson. Hello. Guys got great barbarian voices. Do your real voice, don't do my voice. Hello. Stop it. Stop mocking me. When last we left our heroes, they had traveled to the spirit world with the help of Cartwin to recover or at least find some information regarding the disappearance slash death of…

I'm trying to do a recap here, man. What's so fucking funny? I'm sorry. I just remember the ritual that Cartwin used to send us to the spirit world. You made it so sexy for some reason. No, I did not. I was trying to describe something on the layer of clothing underneath. I was trying to describe something on the layer of clothing underneath. I was trying to describe something on the layer of clothing underneath. Her cloak revealing. You kept being like, she's undulating.

I did not say undulating. And then her cloak just slips down her shoulder and you see something. It's so sexy. If you find my voice erotic, which many of us do. Many of us. You include yourself. I include myself. I listen to this podcast. Look. It was a little… All right. Fine. It was sexy. Whatever. I'm sexy. Thank you. No, not you. You just have weird thoughts and you're projecting. What? I'm going to start that recap now.

When last we left our heroes, they had traveled to the spirit world with the help of Cartwin to recover or at least find information regarding the disappearance slash death slash weird situation involving Ving Vang Zuba, the druid. They arrived at a place.

They were in a place that Shathane referred to as the interface and met up with a spirit guide in the shape of a kind of glowing golden koi fish that was very weird and involved me sort of waving from side to side in my chair for something like 15 minutes. I believe the term's undulating. There it is. Undulating. Shathane explained that guides love gifts from the material plane, which is very cool. It's a cool idea. So Tuck was able to pay it with… With music and a coin that it ate.

And it led you through the floating grass-covered islands of the interface area and into a forest that contained a multitude of copies of the same tree over and over and over where you were then attacked by one of those trees. And Billy called upon the spirit projection whatever of the wizard Perel who came to his aid only to be consumed in much the same way as the gift.

And Billy was able to get the gift by the spirit guide and is now inhabiting the body of a pretty big fish that also has legs now. Oh, and Shathane used his ability to influence the spirits of the spirit world to scare the tree off, which then skittered off through the forest. And that is where we left our heroes lost in the one tree forest in the dark with a big glowing fish. I don't want to be anything other than what I've been trying to be lately. Got a lot of one tree.

One tree hill references in this show. If there's anything that we know, it's early 2000s CW programming. Back then it was the WB. It was the WB. Where is the one tree forest? It's on the hill. Yeah. It's over there on that hill. So we come back and Tuck, you're standing in front of the towering form of this four legged fish who's up on his hind legs and has told you to stand down. And he settles back down. He settles down on his four feet and looks around and says, where are we?

And I disregard his question. I poke him with my hand and I'm like, fuck you, piss monster. What are you doing here? You piece of shit. It's your fucking fault that we're here. He is letting you poke him. Yeah. He doesn't react because I think he's maybe realized that you are not a threat to him right now because he's getting he's almost it almost seems like he's getting bigger and bigger by the moment. Like he he looks very.

Dense and very large, bigger than certainly than the fish was when it came out of the pond. And he looks at Billy and says, Billy, where are we? Ooh, we are in a sort of ghosty world. What is it called? And I look at Shathane. What is that? This is the this is the interface. Who is this? This is the piece of shit that killed our friend. OK. All right. Well, first things first. No, I didn't. Hmm. Are you? Not the piss monster that fought us at that magic pond. Not in so many words. Up. I.

Billy, did you explain this to them at all? No, because I barely understand why you're bothering me all the time. And I have not had lunch. I don't even know if I can get lunch now. And it's your fault. I don't know where I'm going with this. Well, let me let me try and explain it. The fish looks at Shathane like, hello. Holds out a flipper. And I don't think we've met. Same wick. Perel. I am. Well, I was a wizard a long time ago. And now I appear to be a fish, but not even me.

So when I was trapped in that box and he he points at the box that's on Tuck's back. This is when I was trapped in there. I was contained for almost 100 years. And as anybody who has been contained for a significant amount of time would know, it does things to you. And. As the bonds of that vessel started to weaken, I was able to allow some of that frustration to vent. And after a period of time, my box came into the possession of these fools. And well, let me finish my story.

And I was able to vent that frustration inadvertently at first into young William here. That is not my name. I deserve respect. I. Yeah. I'm sorry. I. Fat Billy. I. Exactly. Yes. I assumed that was a nickname. I assumed Billy was short for something. No. It's just Billy. It's fat Billy to you, sir. Fat Billy. Very well. To pick up Billy, I put him on my shoulder to make him to help him appear more intimidating piece of shit.

I was able to vent that frustration into Billy here for reasons I have attempted to explain to him and he has refused to listen to. Over time, that frustration left me and entered him. You're a wizard. You were in a box for a hundred years. You know why we put you in those boxes. I know why you thought you were putting me in these boxes. You know why you should have been in there for another thousand years. You know why the wizards shouldn't be out. This is a conversation for another time.

I was trying to do good work. I was trying to save lives. Yeah. I feel like this is a conversation for now because it feels like we're getting a lot of free exposition that we don't have to roll for. You don't have to roll for it. You don't have to roll for things that people tell you willingly. Long story short, my frustration was in Billy there and that apparently had an adverse effect on him understandably.

So I just put all my frustration and my anger and my ambition into Billy because that was the strongest emotion I felt at the time. When you went to expunge him of those forces, that feeling, that was the part of me that was released from him. That was the part of me that killed your friend. What a dumb explanation. You should, especially because you're older than me, I bet, you should be an adult and manage your emotions, practice mindfulness. Yeah.

You shouldn't be taking it out on me, especially because I didn't consent to this. Yeah. Trash. Billy is a fucking child. I am so small. Yes. And I don't know what to do with these feelings and my changing body. And. My emotions. He's flowering into a man. Look at him. Look at me. Yeah. Look at me. Doesn't need your weird emotions inside of him. Non-consensually. Perel like puts a flippered hand like on his fish face and just rubs it down his whole face in exasperation.

He's like, I think we all can agree. One, that Billy is not a child. Billy is a child. I made that mistake too when I first met him. But all halflings look. It's hard to tell their age. Have you really not explored anything regarding your ancestry at all? Well, no, because my parents, who knows where they are now? And I don't remember really. And no one is was nice to me in my hometown. And so I left. And I don't know. I just look at the moon sometimes.

And then I'm like, maybe this is how old I am now. And I just guess. How long? That's worth. That's worth figuring out eventually. But either way, I did not kill your friend. I just want that clear. Well, I'm hearing a lot of I didn't kill your friend. It's mostly Billy's fault. It's not my fault. Not hearing a lot of apologies. That's all wizards do. It's endless shovels full of bullshit justification for everything they've ever done. We need to use him.

Find your friend and get him back in his box. Yes. Wait, what's in this box now? And I take it off. My back is like, what the fuck am I carrying this around for? It's really. I'm trying to explain, but you can't. And I slam. I'm going to slam it against the tree. Is there anything in here? I am. Okay. Slam it. I rattle it. It was not me that was in Billy. Let me rephrase that. It's fucking weirdo. I was not the one that killed your friend. I am not even here right now in this fish.

I am in that box. Oh, so you're still in here. Yes. And I slam it against a tree again. Does it have any effect on him? No. Okay. I try hitting it again harder against the tree. That's not going to do anything. Is this doing anything to you? No, it's at. Wait a second. Any looks at the box? Can I get that here? No, this is mine. Can you show it to me then? Okay. And I hold it out of arm's reach. That's fine. And he points at the crack. Hey, no pointing. What? No pointing. No flash.

I'm not allowed to point. No arms at your side. Okay. So there's a crack in the lid of the box. Yes. How? I did it by accident because I lost my temper, which happens a lot. You broke it? Yes. And I apologized because that's what big boys do. High five. He furrows the fish equivalent of eyebrows. Says that shouldn't be possible. Well, it's a shitty box. It's old and shitty. That box is made out of one of the strongest materials on our plane. Of existence, which is. You don't know? No.

Oh, well, do you know? Because it feels like you're kind of just stretching to find a name. No, I know the name, but I feel like I feel like I am giving up too much. I feel like I'm giving it all up for free. Oh, actually, I guess if she was around, he'd probably know. I think I know at least I know some more about these boxes. Yeah. I might not. I might not know specifically. Well, find out. You can spell Lord. Yeah. Yeah. Because this is a because you can't really spell Lord about stuff.

You have no way of knowing about. That's the only thing. But your thing does. So give me a 2D6 plus intelligence. Seven and eight. Eight. Okay. So on a seven to nine, the gym will only tell you something interesting. It's on you to make it useful. So, you know, that the box is made out of a very hard to work, but magically. Like neutral material. It's a material called Ward stone. Ward stone. Like it basically has just a null magic effect.

So it's able to neutralize magical things, but it can still be worked in a way that it is able to facilitate magical ruins. But it is used to contain a lot of stuff. So the wizards did work for men and elves at one point. Thousands of years ago, there were great battles fought all over the world. The wizards were employed to create weapons. And enchantments and slave armies and all kinds of great stuff that they really loved reveled in.

And they created a material to build weapons to defeat the other enemy wizards weapons. And so this was one of those materials, Ward stone. And as their powers grew and their evil became more evident and their end goals became obvious, then it became a responsibility of men and elves and all other beings to take the material that they created and build prisons. And boxes to get as many wizards and keep them from continuing their evil work.

I feel like that's an oversimplification of what we were doing, but he's more or less right. And it's one of these Ward stone boxes I've spent almost 100 years trapped inside of. Okay. So you are a criminal is what you're telling us because you're clearly in prison right now. That's subjective. And that box should have been built strong enough to keep him in there for thousands. So the fact that you knucklehead managed to break it open or damage it is almost unbelievable.

It should be impossible. Anyways, I was very angry and I felt very embarrassed when I did it. Well, I mean, thanks to this, I'm able to take amazing, beautiful form such as this horrific fish monster and talk to people like young fat Billy over here. I'm not free yet, but hopefully soon. Yeah, we should maybe do something about this. Well. Once we find Ving. I can be of help. Hmm. There's a power inside Billy. I'm not sure if you're aware of that.

I was slightly aware of what was going on at the pool, but you saw what he did, what he could potentially be capable of. Yeah. So do some fucking sick knife moves. That's the power that Billy has. He's got sweet knife moves. He's good at helping with poems. He's good eating. I am. Yeah. I can eat up to a dozen potatoes. No problem. In one sitting. In one sitting. He once out ate a full grown bear. Yeah. Wonderful. We won. Reubenborn. This takes for so long. Also champion sweating skills.

We've never really seen anybody. Real good at that. I love that there's like a novelty tavern that's like, if you can out eat our bear, you get to stay here for free. Yeah. That's awesome. I like that a lot. I will remember that because that is hilarious. You get to out eat a bear. We put a drawing of you on the wall. Yeah. He has three drawings in that tavern. I just walk in and they're like, oh, him again. Better just make the bed now. Even the bear gets upset. Oh, man. Yeah. So embarrassing.

He walks in and the bear's just like. So embarrassing. Oh, fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I don't like that joke. But Perel says, you know, you know, that's not true. You know that that is not the only power that he is capable of. Billy, do you not want to learn more? Like what? Learn to harness these abilities. Sounds like so much work. It would be. But think of the potential.

Don't don't listen to him. These are the abilities that ruined the world. These. Yeah. He's getting very he's getting steamed. But not even like angry. Just like. You. This is. How long have you been out of the box? You've been in the box for 100 years. You've been out of the box for who knows how long. Look what you've done. Yeah. Look what you've done. Look where we are. No food. Anywhere. For miles. You know what you can do? You can help them find their friend. I will. Your excuses.

Your bullshit stories. We don't need them. We need some help from once from a wizard. Yeah. We need. If you help us bring Ving back to life. Then we'll call it squares. And then I don't know. I'll fucking break the box open for you or whatever. Don't break the box or not. I don't know. Are you trying to parlay with him? No. I'm just saying words. Yeah. But you're literally offering him a thing with leverage. Okay. Then. Yeah. Whatever. Help us. And I'll free you. Sure. Terrible. Terrible idea.

Hey. I'm lying. I'm lying to him. Hey. Should they. Just a second. Hang on. Should I look at me? Are they getting closer to my headphones? Hey. Give us a second. Okay. Very well. Go stand over there by those trees. You really want. I'm your only source of light. Do you want me to walk off right now? Wizards have excellent hearing. Okay. Well, he starts walking away. He kind of ambles in a direction and it does get darker. Okay. Quite a lot darker. Understand what he can do. Yeah. He's a bad guy.

He's a very bad guy. He's a very bad guy. He's a very bad guy. So I'm lying. I'm going to lie down. I'm going to tell him. He's lying to us. They lie. They cheat. They kill. They destroy. That's what wizards do. Okay. I'll take that under advisement. All right. But I'm not going to let him out of this box. What we're going to do is we're going to. So he made a noise and I looked over there. I looked over because Jessica went, oh, while looking out the window and there's a squirrel. Okay.

There's a squirrel here. There's a squirrel on a tree. Weird. In the. Okay. Fuck. Okay. Here's what. Here's what I'm going to. I'm going to. I'm going to try and just. I'll lie to him. I'll tell him. We're going to break him out of the fucking prison he's in. I understand that he's not stupid. I get that he's a bad guy. All evidence to the contrary. You keep treating me like a fucking child and I'm not a child. I get that this guy's a bad guy. I lost my temper one time.

I kind of broke him out of wizard jail or whatever. It's not going to happen again. Probably. Probably. So. I'm just going to lie to him. Tell him I'm going to bring him out of jail. We're going to get fucking. What? Ving. What's his name? Ving. Your blood brother. You feel. You feel the ghost root in your stomach gurgle. Yeah. This ghost root made you smart and reasonable. We'll see how long this lasts. I'm going to fucking lie to him. I'll tell him I'll break him out of the box.

It's not going. I'm not going to. And then we'll take him to the vault once we have Ving. Fine. Whatever. For some reason, I trust you. Yes. Good. Here. There's. I'm going to write a bond down. No. You trust me. No, no, no. I'm doing it. That's not how bonds work. Okay. And then we turn back. Just write something down. Can you write? Can you write? I can't. I don't understand why I keep having to reiterate that I am literate. Perel starts coming back over. He's like, are you done? Yes. Okay.

I'll break you out of fucking wizard jail if you help us. I don't know why I'm still whispering. I'll break you out of wizard jail. All right. Roll it. You help us. 2d6 plus charisma. We're going to do this like a parlay. Seven, eight, nine, eight, nine. They will do what you ask, but they need some concrete assurance of your promise right now. I'll help you. But in the meantime, I'd like to hold on to that box. What's the worst that could happen? Oh, I'm not even sure. I've never.

The world could end. I've never been to the spirit world before. I'm not even 100% that that's the actual box. It could just be some sort of spiritual projection of it. I have to stay with you. So full of shit. How would I get back without you? I've never been here before. Billy, what do you think? This is not feeling so good in my tummy. Can we give you something else maybe? Yeah. The box. What are you going to do with it? I'm just going to hold on to it.

Can we give you something that looks like a box? Yeah. What? I look around. Okay. I'm going to bring them over to me. And we're going to walk. And I'll have another little whisper. What are we going to do? You hear Perel go, oh my God. This is how we confer. We solve problems. Okay. Fine. Just fucking chill out for two seconds. Why don't you fucking something useful for once? All right. He's like, fine. Whatever. Fine. Then he gets up on his back legs. You weird looking fish man.

Walks into the trees. Okay. The light dies. He cannot use the box. Okay. So. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Why. I can hold for it. He's not going to do anything to me. He is going to do something to you. Do you know what wizards do when they have control over people? What did a wizard who barely had existence in our plane do to your friend? All he does is he just sits in my head and talks to me. What does he say?

He just says shit. I don't know. Have you ever met an elf? Do you know why elves do what they do? Yeah. Yeah, because they say the wizards made them. Do you think they like living their lives as our agents? I don't know. It's the kind of thing that nobody really wants to think about. Like, where do these clothes come from? Did the people who made it, were they children? It was $4 at Banana Republic. So is this what we want to have happen to Billy? Sure. So I wander up to him. And then I guess.

Oh, it's so dark. Yeah. Perel's like, you see the light off. Not that far off in the trees. And it's sort of that weird grid shape where there's an equal amount of distance between all of the trees and all of the trees are identical in shape. And you see the light deeper in the trees. I trotskies over. And then I'm like, hey, let's make a deal here. He crouches down. Okay. So he's not going to give you that box. He really likes it. I think he has some weird emotional attachment to that box.

He says some stuff about it. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. You can carry me instead. I don't really like walking anyway. And then at the end, you give me back and then you get your box. What? You want me to just carry you around? Sure. And he like looks at his hands and they like his stubby little arms and stuff like that. And he's like, hmm. Okay. Just a second. You see him like stretching his fish shoulders a little bit and his shape starts to change. Okay. All right. Hold on just a second. And he's like.

Changing his size and like his his legs elongate and his body narrows and lengthens. And he sort of stretches himself out into this almost like pony shape, like a like a little long fish pony horse thing that's small enough that it's not like super uncomfortable for you to ride. So it's like, okay, that works for me. Okay. I suppose. And he kneels down so you can hop on. All right. We're going to talk more later. Sure thing. And he weaves his way back out through the trees. Okay.

And he comes up to you, Shathane, and Tuck, and he says, all right, Billy's going to stick with me. We're going to find a way out of here. Okay. This is the worst idea. No, man. I got it. Hold on to that box. You know what? I trust Billy because he's been able to hold his own a lot of times. Hey, here, hold my hand. And I try and grab his hand. Hold his hand. Hold his hand. Hold his hand. Hold his hand. Hold his hand. Hold his hand. Hold his hand. Hold his hand. Hold his hand. Hold his hand. No.

Hold his hand, Shathane. I'm not good at holding my hand. I keep slipping my fingers out of your giant paw. Just give me your hand a little bit. Get the fuck away. Perel goes, oh, okay. Awkward. All right. And I'll just do the eye point to finger Perel horse head point to finger me eyes thing. He picks up one flipper. Does the eye thing to you as well? And he says, all right, well, we're lost. What do we do? And he points to the gap.

Like he kind of noses at the gap where the tree that ran away was. Says what happened over here? And he's like looking at tracks and stuff like that. Like the tree has left divots in the ground where it dragged its roots through the earth. But you've taken control of the guide, the spirit guide that we had. You've overwhelmed him with your evil intent. There's got to be some element of him in there. Still, that can give us this guidance.

I was able to change my form, but I think that's as far as I can go. I think I've more or less supplanted whatever pure spirit of myself entered this. Any pure element of helpfulness that was in the spirit you've managed to eliminate. And look, pal, that's enough. There's a lot of tension between you guys. For no reason. Yeah. I've got hunting track. We saw there are some trails and tracks that we saw. Yeah. Yeah. The tree left some like divots in the ground. Yeah. When he took off. Yeah.

So I'm going to try hunt and track move. Yeah. Sounds great. So what is hunt and track? When you follow a trail of clues left behind by passing creatures, roll a plus wisdom. Yeah. Sounds great. So go ahead and roll two to six plus wisdom. Five wisdom is plus two. So seven. Yeah. So you follow these sort of furrows in the earth left by the tree's roots as it scurried off through the forest with the light that Perel's form is.

Casting in the trees, you're able to follow it through this very grid shaped forest. It feels like it gets denser, but the trees are still the same distance apart. You eventually come to a almost perfectly square shaped clearing and you see the trail that the roots left go into the clearing into the middle. And as you get closer and closer, you hear cooing almost like a vibration sort of sound. It's like. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. But you need to get closer. What do you do? Can I do trap expert?

Yeah, sure. Yeah. You can try something like that. So how do you roll trap expert? I roll plus dexterity. Is that two D six? Yeah. Yeah. It's all two D six. I got seven. Okay. So what do you get with a seven on trap expert? I have one hold as I walk through the area and I ask, is there a trap here? And if so, what activates it? As you walk forward through the clearing, you get to a point where you hear the sound in the darkness and it's too far away to see what it's. Making that noise.

But you do see just below the earth, just the top of a very thick root sort of push out of the dirt and then go back in like a, almost like the back of a fish, like in the water. And you think that if you walked any further forward, whatever that roots connected to would know that you're there. Hey guys, there's a weird tree worm and it's just going about its business over here. I don't really know. Chathain, Perel. Do you guys know what tree worm? Are you know what this is?

Spell or yeah, it'd be a good thing to do. Oh, cool. How does that work? It's just like the name of the podcast thing. We keep forgetting to do. Yeah. Yeah. Two to six plus intelligence. Holy shit. Ten. Ten. In your travels in the spirit world decades ago, you heard about this spirit. You know that all of these trees like it sort of comes back to you. You're like, oh, I've heard. Okay. Yes. I know where we are now. I know where we are now.

This entire forest is spawned by a single large tree spirit. And it sits in the middle of this clearing and it treats all of these trees sort of like it's children. Although they're all copies of itself, but it sort of treats this whole forest as if it's under its care and its protection and it's nurturing. And in your mind, you're like, oh, that's what that cooing sound is. It's comforting something. Oh, this is likely the one that you sliced. in half and then I scared the shit out of. Yeah.

Sap out of. Should we try and interact with this tree spirit and maybe apologize? Maybe try and explain ourselves? Yeah. Let's do it. You definitely could. I think because it tried to grab the fish it might be a good idea to keep the pony fish out of grabbing range especially since Fat Billy's on the back. Yeah. Well our deal was that Billy would stay with me so. Okay. Well I'll go try and like I don't know. I'll sing a song to it. Oh nice. Yeah. Maybe they like jokes.

I'm not going to do my stand up mark. Thank Christ. Alright so yeah so what do you do? How do you approach this tree? Here hold my hand. Alright so I for once in my life allow someone to hold my hand. Come on. And we'll tentatively move forward. Yeah I take out the kind of like the crystal that we stole from that mayor's house. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And I hold it up in the air. Because you have like you have a few of those right? Well I gave one to everyone. Yeah. So Billy has one.

I have one. Yeah. And Ving has one wherever he is right now. Yeah. So they said Billy Tuck and Shathane start walking forward and Tuck pulls out the light crystal and you see Perel turn his head and look right at it. Hey man. You have more of them. Yeah. What's your problem? Wait. Why are you being so weird about it? It's not. I'm not trying to be weird. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable but we've talked about what those are. What those do. Can you refresh my mind?

Those are almost pure magic. Oh cool. Okay. Yeah I got one too. Yes I'm aware. Oh yeah. Okay. That is what allowed you to focus your abilities. Allowed you to harness the energy. Do you remember? Oh yeah. I remember. You are going to be a very frustrating yet impressive apprentice. Thank you. And we cut forward to Tuck's and Shathane walking through. So the second you walk forward and you walk where Billy was like whoa there's something in the ground.

You hear the cooing stop and roots start jerking up from the ground and wrapping around your feet. What do you do? I let it happen. Oh you're just letting it grab you? I don't struggle against it. Okay. Because I feel like the last time this happened the fish was like struggling and the more it struggled the more. So it felt like quicksand. We might be able to figure this out because I have. Can I do this now? God against the waste. Yeah what are you trying to do?

So cast a spell and detect alignment so I can sort of get a sense of what these things. Yeah yeah yeah. I don't really like to do magic very much because wizards do a lot of magic and I don't fucking wizard stuff. Yeah we get it. You're racist man. You're racist against wizards. You're racist against elves for some reason. But when appropriate I'll pull out the big guns. Yeah. And like we talked about it's not really it's not magic in the magic sense.

It's more like you've been to the spirit world before so you're attuned to all of this. So cast a spell. When you cast a spell choose an alignment. Good, evil, lawful, or chaotic. One of your senses is briefly able to detect that alignment. 2d6 plus your wisdom I believe to cast a cleric spell. Shit. Six. Six. So that is a failure. Can I help? Because I might be holding his hand. Yeah you could aid. Oh yeah. That's true. That's true. Do we get a plus one because we're holding hands?

Just roll 2d6 flat. A plus one for holding hands. Seven. Alright yeah so that makes it a seven which is great. What are you doing when you cast the spell? Like how does it work? So I choose an alignment and try and detect if anything in our… Yeah but what is Shathane doing? Underneath his cloaks and everything. Not obvious to everybody. There's some religious artifacts.

He clasps them and he sort of puts his hand out in a little sort of Yoda raising an X-wing way and tries to perceive this alignment. He's trying he's looking for evil alignment is really what he's trying to detect if the roots and everything have evil intent. Okay. So I take the arm that has the new tree tattoo on it and I put it on his shoulder and you see the tree tattoo bleed into his skin. Cool. Heavy. That's heavy. Yeah. And I was I just… You were just gonna grab him?

I didn't mean to do it. I just put my arm on his shoulder just cause like… And then your tattoo started moving? I'm scared of the dark so I'm like… And it kind of mysteriously matches up because I've got this tooled leather sort of ceremonial armor on and that tree shape lines right up with… Cool. And then I'm like… Are you seeing this? So on a 7 to 9 with cast a spell… I think the ghost root really fucked me up. On a 7 to 9 with cast a spell you have to choose one.

You draw unwelcome attention or put yourself in a spot. Your casting distances you from your deity. Take minus one ongoing to cast a spell until the next time you commune. After you cast it the spell is revoked. You cannot cast the spell again until you commune and have it granted. I think the revoke one cause then that's gonna make me potentially try and use other spells. So yeah. We'll use the revoked. Cool. Sounds good.

So yeah you attune your senses to evil alignment and you do not sense anything evil from the roots. You feel like this is just a… This is a natural reaction to a parent feeling like it's children are in danger. So I think we both feel that somehow. Just through our connection right now we just get it and we just we know it's safe to move forward and continue to… Well it's wrapped around our legs. Yeah you're wrapped up in the roots.

So once it gets you like sort of up to the waist zone you just start getting dragged through the earth in an upright position but you get pulled forward. Okay I take the guitar off my back and I want to sing it a song till I kind of chill it out. Time for a song! Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. You have to help me. God damn it. Holding hands now helping sing a song. Yeah I need you to help me sing this song. Alright. Do you know any songs about trees? That's okay.

I just make them up usually on this one. Every single song I know is about trees. Oh cool. So it's gonna be hard to pick a specific one so maybe if I get a little start Here I'll start it up. Alright. Hempmas trees you are so beautiful Orchery you make me want to see you in the sky you will be free. Free like a tree with the tree and the bee Did you know that bee rhymes with tree and that's when you get to see That last bit was it got better in the end. It got way better. It was amazing.

So you you get pull Jesus Christ. Is that a roll or anything? Yeah do I roll for it? Divide angel charisma? I guess so yeah. Five six seven. Oh thank god.

So you okay you know what happens So as you're singing this song and uh getting pulled forward in this in the earth um you get to a point where you see larger roots ahead of you and uh like large roots like big around as a person and the roots that are holding you come to a stop and one snakes out of up out of the earth and takes your like snatches your guitar out of your hands and just holds it away from you. What why no come on give that back.

You see near the tangle of man-sized roots the tree that you fought earlier that you cut the roots of and it's like got branches pressed against a larger trunk like it's hugging the leg of a parent. You hear the and the the whole trunk of that tree bends down and the boughs of the tree with these big wide dark leaves gets re it moves in and comes very close to the two of you and like the sound of wind blowing through the boughs of a tree you hear a voice. You hurt my child.

Sorry you hurt me with that song. I'd like to try and cure light wounds on the injured tree. Oh cool. Okay, but you need it like do you what do you say to the tree? What do I say to the tree to the to the parent tree the one that's telling that it doesn't enjoy the music. Yeah, I just say let me try and help. I think I might know how to yeah, you're gonna have to convince this tree.

It's not it's it like you see a large bow come down and cover the child tree like does that a parlay to allow me to try and cast this be like a defy danger charisma or something like that. I I reach I just I reach up and I grab his leg and I'm like, hey, just dig deep. You gotta be vulnerable with these things. I think I could just roll up my sleeve and show my tattoo which doesn't mean a lot to other people but to something someone some spirit and spirit world seems obvious what that means.

Mm hmm. Yeah. So yeah, roll a 2d6 plus charisma eight eight it hums a little bit and says oh, yes, you will help no more music. What the fuck? The music was good in the end. It got good at the end. The music was great at the end. Yeah, we can just take a little break and try not to get destroyed by these roots. Okay, so it moves its bow and pushes the smaller tree forward and the tree sort of shyly walks up turning like it turns away from you here and there.

It's trying to get its cut roots sort of in the back. So I'm going to try and cast a cure light wounds 2d6 plus wisdom. Oh, 12 12. Wonderful. So you roll a d8 for four not bad. So crouch down instead of reaching into my cloak and pulling out some weird little icons. I have a little bag. They look like standard sort of first day supplies, but they're not. They're different. A band-aid? There's different little things, different bandages that have things in them.

And so I put my hands over them and activate them magically. They start to glow. What is that? Like some kind of tree gauze you got in there? That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is. So it starts to glow when I put it on my hands and I put my hands on the wound and I comfort the tree and start to heal it. And it goes like and it nuzzles you a little bit weirdly like some leaves sort of rub against you in a very thankful way. Very sexual way.

I instinctively tip my head away and just stand up and stand back a little bit. Yeah. And the tree sort of like at the big tree and the big tree goes and Bao comes down and pats it along, you know, when a kid kind of or a parent kind of pats their kid on the back like, okay, there you go. And the tree hustles off past the two of you into the darkness. And Billy, you are sitting with Perel on top of Perel or maybe you've got off of him at this point. No, I'm like kind of lounging there still.

Just kicking back. Yeah. And out of the darkness you hear getting like louder and louder. Whoa, what's that? And Perel crouches down a little bit like a like a dog. It's like something's coming. Okay. And then out of the darkness you see the tree. And it's not paying you any mind, but it passes through the field of light that Perel is casting and goes like, okay. And then just hustles back off into the tree line. Wow. I was really tense there for a second.

Perel says, I guess it must be going well. I guess so. He kind of turns his head and he's trying to get a good look at you on his back like just a okay, hold on. Okay, here we go. And his neck elongates a little bit. Oh my God. I'm getting the hang of this. Why do you have to do this? I'm starting to figure this out. This is pretty interesting. Actually, I have such a degree of control over my physicality here. Gross. It's just sorry. It's been a long time since I've had a body of any kind.

Yeah, keep it to yourself though. Like I can't do stuff like that. And I would even if I could, I wouldn't do it as grossly as you are. He shakes his head a little bit like children. And he looks at you and he says, so have you given any thought to my offer? Teaching you? Not really, to be honest, because I just want to get our friend back and then I can think about things later. But you know the power that you could command. Oh, yes.

Do you have you have you had any experiences like the one at the pool since since then? I know it's only been what a couple almost a week or so since the pool. I don't know. Nothing like that. I mean, I did. I don't really like to share this information. But one time in my town, I accidentally set fire to a grain silo. I did not do it on purpose, but people got really mad and it was like the third time I've done that and I didn't know what I was doing.

See, this is the sort of thing I'm talking about. If you were trained, if you learned, if you taught yourself or had a teacher, any sort of wiggles, his fishy eyebrows, you wouldn't have that sort of thing happen anymore. Those powers that you exhibit, you would be able to use to your benefit. Oh, my God. I really don't care right now. I'm just saying I could teach you a little something right now. We could be so tired. I haven't had lunch. Oh, you haven't eaten? No.

Oh, there's nothing to eat here. Hold on. I am. And you feel like the torso, sort of start to like… There's some things in here we could see. No. There's something to eat. No. No? Nope. Not eating your weird magic poops and other things that you have in there. Tacoma, he… I was sort of aware from the box, but he was giving this thing objects, right? Like a coin. He kind of… You see him like close his eyes and like think about what's in his body like and a bottle? Yeah. And…

Oh, there are definitely other things in here. Oh. Gross. Wow. I don't like where this is going. All right. Well, should we try and get closer? Sure. Okay. And he starts to like pick his way towards the tree. Tuck and Shathane, you are with this tree and the tree is bent down to talk to you. So what exactly about this song did you not like? Is it like you don't like music in general? Or… Is it like you don't like rock music? Music is not for the forest. Well, that explains it then.

The forest… It was a good song. I think we can all agree it was a good song. And then I lean forward, I touch the tree, like, it was a good song. It hated your music so much that it learned how to talk. It was humming and hymning. Yeah. And then I lean over to Shathane, I put my arm on his shoulder, I'm like, I think we can all agree that it was a good song. So the tree, yeah, the tree like shakes its branches. And you just hear… That is music. Okay.

And you hear, like, the cry of some sort of animal like… in the distance. And it goes, that is music. What have you come for? Why are you here? Um… It's a long story, but our friend, who is a shapeshifter, was murdered by that, and then I… Yeah, you see the light of the fish pony sort of moving forward? It's got a really long neck now. Yeah. And it's picking forward through the roots. Fucking wizard. So gross.

Anyway, he killed our friend, so we had to venture into the spirit realm to try and find him. To bring him back to life. There are not many of your kind in the spirit world. And when you do come, you bring nothing but pain. It sort of shakes your guitar a little bit. And frustration and imbalance. Have you seen a guy that's, like, tall, with, like, long, flowing silver hair, who's got a lot of flaps? He's maybe got a staff with him, or a spear?

We never really established which one of those things it was. My children are spread wide across this realm. Can I come up at this point? Yeah, you get closer, and the tree's like, Hey! Because I'd overheard it. Do you think you can ask one of them? Ooh. Perhaps. It wants something. First, what do you think it wants? I have a blue hat. Do you want my hat? Yeah. Everybody, dig in to your inventory. Wait. And let's go through everything that we have. We were so close, but it's blue! Ew, blue hats.

Forests do not like birdy hats. We have three blue hats. Okay, so it, um… Okay, here's what I have. I have one obsidian coin. I have the guitar that you have… You're gonna give it back. I have an impenetrable billhook. I have an axe. It stops you. It stops you. It, like, shakes all of its branches. It says, No, no, no, no, no, no. What I want is… life for my children. I want them to flourish and grow in this place and in other places.

And if you are to find your friend with my help, you will help them grow. Yeah, super ominous, but okay, whatever. Like how, though? You have to be more specific. Everything in this world is so vague, and I am very grumpy. I am sick of this! So, um, it says you agree you will help. You did not tell us what to do. You have to tell us. No! And I slap it. Whoa, what do you slap? The air. It's so far away, there's nothing to actually slap, so you're just like… I can't tell how far it is.

I'm so mad! And I'm like, yeah, Billy's right. I agree. And then I shake its brain. Whoa, no. This is very well… And then I turn around and give Billy a thumbs up. And I shake my head at him. Oh, no! You hear the sound of roots being pulled out of the earth on the other side of the tree, and you see moving from root to root sort of like passing things down like a chain of people.

It brings a root out of the ground, and it's got this little basket that it's woven out of its own roots, and it holds it out to you, and inside planted in the earth is about one to two foot tall sapling. Oh, perfect. Cute. It says, you will help my children grow, and I will help you find yours. Sure, you just need us to plant this wherever, right? Plant this in a place that it would like. A place where no other trees grow. Okay. We will bring through you my children to a new land. Oh, God.

Imagine if we could find a hill with no trees on it. Fine, fine. Just be one tree on that hill. And then we went up to the top of that hill, and then we planted that tree. I take that stupid tree, and I put it in front of me. I'm like, fine. Okay. So it's sort of the basket that it's woven sort of comes off of the branch. It makes this little basket-y bag with kind of little handle bits near the top. What's its name? It shakes its branches. Just give us a name.

Like, name it, or else we're going to name it, and you're going to be upset with the name that we choose. Its name is… My name is all names. Fuck me. Oh, my God. Its name is my name is all names? Oh. You guys. You guys want to play a fantasy game? Just. Try and be fantasy. No, name it a normal name. Its name is you. Are you? Who's you? Please leave. Okay. Take my child. I'm going to call him Gary. Oh, Gary. Hey, I'm going to name you Gary. Does the sapling do anything? It shakes a little bit.

Cool. I think he likes it. He likes that name. You will find your friend on the other side of my forest. Through the hills. Through the plain. In the hive of the wasp. Thanks for listening, everybody. I've been your game master Sean O'Hara. With me, as always, playing Tacoma Dome, the barbarian, Abdul Aziz. I don't think that's a slur. Playing Fat Billy, the halfling thief, Jessica Tai. I have a blue hat. Playing Shathane, the elf ranger, Mark Robertson. You sound like my boss.

Thanks to Aaron Reed of the Sunday Service for our awesome theme song. Thanks to Mark Robertson for letting us play in his basement. You're welcome. We'll catch you next time, everybody. Thanks for listening. Though our journey may be like a conclusion, we will not leave you without a resolution. Return next week to hear some more whilst you commute or do your chores. And for you, I gladly spell dawn.